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Areas of Interest

Legal and moral philosophy, including issues concerning risks, science and the law, the regulation of carcinogens and developmental toxicants, and the use of scientific evidence in legal decisions.

Profile

Professor Cranor’s generic research interests are in legal and moral philosophy. Moral philosophers are typically educated to write, think and teach about actions, policies or states of affairs that are, inter alia, right, wrong, just or unjust. For twenty-five years Professor Cranor has focused on the morality, legality, and justice of exposure to toxic molecules that could threaten the public’s health. He has written widely on philosophic issues concerning risks, science and the law, – the use of scientific evidence in legal decisions for regulating carcinogens and developmental toxicants, the idea of acceptable risks, protection of susceptible populations, and how society might approach the regulation of new technologies and toxicants to better protect the public’s health. He is the author of Tragic Failures: How and Why We Are Harmed by Toxic Chemicals (Oxford, 2017), Legally Poisoned: How the Law Puts Us at Risk from Toxicants (Harvard, 2011, 2013), Regulating Toxic Substances: A Philosophy of Science and the Law (1993, 1997) and Toxic Torts: Science, Law and the Possibility of Justice (Cambridge, 2006, 2008), and Toxic Torts: Science Law and the Possibility of Justice, Second Edition (Cambridge, 2016), as well as co-authoring a report for the Office of Technology Assessment, Identifying and Regulating Carcinogens (1987), and a study by an Institute of Medicine Committee, Valuing Health: Cost Effectiveness Analysis for Regulation (2006). This research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the University of California Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program. At the undergraduate level he has taught courses on ethics, political philosophy, law and society, legal philosophy, environmental ethics, Rawls, justice and utilitarianism, and a rare course in the history of philosophy. At the graduate level seminars have included justice, Rawls, Rawls and utilitarianism, philosophy of the tort law, legal philosophy, and the idea of acceptable risks. He has served on science advisory panels (California’s Proposition 65, Electric and Magnetic Fields, Nanotechnology, and Biomonitoring Panels) as well as on Institute of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences Committees. Professor Cranor was the National Romanell-Phi Beta Kappa Professor in Philosophy for 2014-2015.

Selected Publications (from most recent)

Books/Monographs:

Tragic Failures: How and Why We Are Harmed by Toxic Chemicals (Oxford University Press, 2017)

Toxic Torts: Science, Law and the Possibility of Justice, Second Edition (Cambridge University Press, 2016)

Legally Poisoned: How the Law Puts Us at Risk from Toxicants (Harvard University Press, 2011, 2013). Recent reviews (summarizing and assessing the content):

“Protecting Early Warners and Late Victims in a Precautionary World?”. Late Lessons from Early Warnings: Science Precaution, Innovation, David Gee, ed. (European Environmental Agency, 2013), pp. 581-606.

FACULTY PROFILE

Professor Jaworska comes to UCR from Stanford University. Earlier she worked in the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health. Her current project is entitled “Ethical Dilemmas at the Margins of Agency.”

NEWS

Congratulations to John Martin Fischer, the first professor of philosophy to be appointed as University Professor by the University of California Board of Regents. The title is reserved for scholars of international distinction who are recognized and respected as teachers of exceptional ability. You may read more on his prestigious award here.

Professor Larry Wright joined UCR in 1970. He was the longest reigning faculty in the UCR philosophy department in his tenure. As Larry joins our other prominent philosophy faculty of Emeritus status, he will continue to service the University as a Professor of Graduate Division from July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2018. On behalf […]